No matter how the BJP handles it, there’s no denying that their election campaign’s been put on steroids by a couple of Gandhis gone rogue. Varun Gandhi’s Muslim-hating demagoguery is being quietly backed up by his mother, who alleged that 45 of Varun’s supporters were beaten up by the police and that a Muslim police officer, Pervez Mian, personally injured 25 BJP workers. This was strongly denied by the Pilibhit police chief, who said that the officer had in fact been transferred out of town precisely to avoid such controversy.

The dispossessed cousin crossing over to the dark side is a familiar epic trope for many Indians — Maneka and Varun moved to the BJP in 2004, a major miscalculation in an election that installed the Congress-led UPA in power. Varun Gandhi had been consistently sidelined in the BJP for the fact that he didn’t come up the party ranks, and was finally gifted his mother’s old constituency of Pilibhit. Now, his hate-mongering has bought him publicity that money couldn’t buy. He knows that he fits into a tradition of politician provocateurs who expertly play the media and inflame social tensions; and emerge out of it with national name-recall, their political presence hugely enhanced. Over Varun Gandhi, the BJP has chosen a too clever by half strategy — disassociating from the combustible content of Varun’s speech, questioning the CD’s veracity, and yet also failing to rein in the parts of its cadre that ran amok in Pilibhit. With various party members taking different tacks, the BJP hopes to energise its hardcore Hindu base, while placating queasy allies like the JD(U) with official disclaimers.

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